From: Niklas Frykholm <r2d2@...>
Date: 2001-08-24T06:12:34+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:20208] Re: ++ Operator

On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 05:38:25AM +0900, Lars Christensen wrote:
> += should be a method, not an operator. It modifies the object using
> addition or appending. Lot of methods in ruby already modify their object.

I could live with this.

> ++a and a++ are also operators perhaps mapped to methods such as
> Numeric#++ and Numeric#++@, and having C semantics. They also modify the
> object (and return the value after or before).

But not this. There are many good reasons for avoiding ++ operators

	(1) x+=1 is only 1 character more.

	(2) In C, x+=1 is a very common operation. In Ruby it is not
		common at all. Loops over integers are written using functions such
		as #times and #upto. Thus, since this operation is not particularily
		common -- why should we have a special case for it?

	(3) The difference between x++ and ++x is very complicated to
		explain to beginning programmers and code making use of this
		difference is usually unreadable.
		
	(4) ++ and -- are only "natural" to C (and C-derivate) programmers. To
		others, it means more syntax to learn and harder to read programs.

	(5) There is no performance gain (compared to a += that is implemented
		in place).

	(6) They complicate the parser.

	(7) ++ is less general than +=, for example, it is hard to give a
		sane definition of m++ where m is a matrix.

// Niklas